Men of a Certain Age Know About Breakups and Brotherhood

I looked in the mirror this morning and what I saw inspired me to seek comfort, somewhere, anywhere. I found that comfort in the new TNT series “Men of a Certain Age”.  The show marks Ray Romano’s return to TV -  but who cares about that, honestly? A guy with 500 mil going back to work ain’t that exciting. What’s important about this show is that it looks at breakups from the perspective of guys who are at an age where life is a series of reflections. It’s not just “Am I with the right woman?” anymore. It’s “Am I in the right place in my LIFE? Did I date the right women before I was with this woman? Am I ever gonna date any other women? Do women I’m never gonna date even WANNA date me?” and perhaps most painfully, “Why does THAT guy still get to date women??”

What really surprised me about this show is that TNT finally seems to have gotten it right. They’ve been trying to meld humor and pathos into a mix they call drama, saying “we know drama” and hoping people will believe it. They failed with “Trust Me,” a glorified sitcom set in the present day but imagining a world in which the ad biz is still the same as it was in the 80s or 90s (see the article on FunkyBeast for a sense of what the ad business is really like) …and most unfortunately, a show that wouldn’t know drama if it cried all over its own spilled milk.

“Men” is something completely different. The shooting style is rough and subdued. And the drama rings true. These are people whose lives are at stake. And a breakup at 45 is not without consequences. More often than not, there are children to be considered. Even for guys without kids, ending a relationship in mid-life is heavy stuff. And, as one of the main characters discovers,  mistakes made this far into the game are even harder to rectify, bad habits harder to break.

The show isn’t a downer, btw. The silver lining to all the other shifts in life is the consistency of brotherhood. Young guys have “bromance” – you break up with a chick and you can go golfing with your bros to take your mind off of it, but by the 9th hole you’re gaining some perspective, and it’s unlikely that the walls are really closing in all that fast (it may seem like it, of course, but trust me…). Older guys have “brotherhood” – it’s what comes after bromance, after all the other “bro’s” and “ho’s” have gone, when the party is just beginning…it’s just a different kind of party, that may be a little less fun but may come with more legitimate reason to celebrate.

“Men of a Certain Age” captures all of this and its core cast is made up of guys who – with the exception of Romano – have been successful but at middle age have themselves not quite hit the big time. Scott Bakula’s a known name, a star with longevity and likeability, but he’s not George Clooney. Andre Braugher is a respected working actor, who’s actually won a couple of Emmys but is not a household name. Not that these guys shouldn’t be happy with their position in life – they should – but even Ray seems like a guy who’s evaluating his choices on a daily basis. One gets the impression that, like the characters they play in this series, these are actors who know that money isn’t everything, and that the real challenges in life are not material – they’re existential. And that makes “Men of a Certain Age” interesting, and certainly worth watching.